


The Hurt Locker

by beggar_always



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Angst, Episode Related, Episode: s02e13 Exit Wounds, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-20
Updated: 2011-04-20
Packaged: 2017-10-18 09:58:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/187686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beggar_always/pseuds/beggar_always
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a drawer in the vaults Ianto knows not to touch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hurt Locker

**Author's Note:**

> Character deaths are only those related to 'Exit Wounds'.
> 
> This was supposed to be comment fic written for fly_meaway's prompt to a meme where she picked a number and I wrote a Jack/Ianto fic to the corresponding song in my iTunes. #2404 happened to be "The Hurt Locker" (from _The Hurt Locker_ soundtrack...) and this is the story that popped into my head. I sorta just ran with it...
> 
> No beta and written on the fly..

There’s a drawer in the vaults Ianto knows not to touch.

There’s no tag on the front; no card to identify its contents. The others probably assume its empty, but Ianto keeps the files; Ianto reads the records.

It’s called to him from his very first days at Torchwood Three. Just a tug, at the back of his mind, wanting him to come closer.

When Lisa had still been alive, the call had been easy to ignore. He’d had more important things to see to; more important things to occupy his thoughts.

But in the lonely days, _weeks_ , that follow her destruction, the call is almost too strong for Ianto to ignore. It’s warm, familiar, feels like an old friend begging him to come home.

\---

Owen had been surprisingly gentle when he’d patched Ianto up. But as soon as Ianto had been deemed bruised but well enough to go home on his own, Owen had hurried out the door without a second thought to the younger man.

The Hub is a lonely place at the best of times. When it’s empty, when even Jack has disappeared to wherever he disappears to, the emptiness drains whoever gets left behind.

Ianto finds himself in the vault, staring at The Drawer. He aches to reach out to it, to lay his hand against it, to feel it reach back out to him.

He forces himself to remember the note in the vault records: Do Not Open On Pain Of Paradox.

It’s been there for a very long time and Ianto can feel its loneliness as a counterpart to his own. It calls to him and it’s all Ianto can do to resist it.

“I guess we’ll have to wait a while longer,” Ianto whispers. Two years, the timer on the drawer says. Two years and whatever’s trapped inside will be released.

Ianto can’t imagine still being alive in two years. His luck’s running thin as it is.

He finds there’s a small part of him that _wants_ to survive the next two years, if only to confront this _thing_ that keeps calling to him.

\---

Ianto’s not exactly sure what it is he’s doing with Jack but it’s been _weeks_ since he’s slept in his own bed and he’s fallen comfortably into a routine of work and sex and the occasional blur of the two.

It still calls to him, late in the night or early in the morning, when Jack’s in the shower or disappeared somewhere because he’d thought Ianto sound asleep. Ianto lies in the too-small bed and feels it calling him.

The Hub’s still lonely but Ianto’s adjusting and learning to appreciate what he _can_ have.

\---

Jack’s gone and Ianto’s in the vault again. He hasn’t been in here since they’d tried to place Jack’s corpse in here, in the drawer just above The Drawer, in fact.

Jack’s been gone for days and the pull of The Drawer has never been stronger. Ianto sits on the floor with his back against one of the other drawers and tries not to feel like his world’s been ripped away from him...again.

He feels oddly comforted here, in the company of so many, so many that he’s placed here himself. The Drawer is a nearly pleasant hum in the back of his mind, seemingly content to have Ianto so near.

He wonders if he should be more concerned that a rather creepy vault is starting to feel like Home.

\---

Jack comes back... _different_. They dance around each other for a week before Ianto gives up on pretending he’s angry. This different Jack is better at making Ianto feel like he’s not just some guy Jack’s shagging for the time being. They may not actually be a _couple_ , but they’re certainly _something_.

The Drawer is still there, but it’s no longer insistent. It doesn’t call to Ianto so much as it reminds him it's still there, patiently waiting.

Ianto barely even admits it to himself, but there’s a countdown going in his head - two more months and the wait will be over.

\---

It’s not until they’ve watched Tosh’s video and they’ve spent nearly an hour comforting one another that he realizes The Drawer is no longer in his head.

He races for the vault, panic building in his gut. For more than _two years_ it’s been a part of him. He can’t handle the loss of it, not after Tosh; not after Owen. It’s too much.

He hasn’t been down here in days. They’ve yet to move Tosh down here, her body still in one of the coolers upstairs, so close to where she’d died...

The Drawer is open, empty, and Ianto drops to his knees next to it. He’s lost so much and he can’t help but feel as if this empty drawer mocks him.

“You kept me sane,” a soft voice says from behind him. He turns, startled, and watches in confusion as Jack crosses the vault toward him. “My mind woke up before my body,” he goes on. “I’d spent so long underground...and then this...” Jack takes a shaky breath, his gaze fixed on the empty drawer. After a moment, his eyes lift to meet Ianto’s. “I could sense you here. It helped; when you were close.”

Ianto struggles to catch up with the conversation. “You...?” They haven’t had much of a chance to talk; not about anything but the stuff vital to the restoration of Cardiff - not about what had happened to Jack after John and Gray had buried him alive.

Ianto gets to his feet, still holding Jack’s gaze. “You were in The Drawer?” he asks, thinking he’s on the verge of understanding. Jack grimaces slightly and glances down at the drawer.

“Do Not Open on Pain of Paradox,” he mutters darkly.

It makes sense to Ianto, all so suddenly. Why the pull at the back of his mind had felt so familiar; why it’d been just a little bit quieter when Jack had been near.

Ianto steps forward and pulls Jack into his arms, ignoring the stiffness in his shoulder as he holds the other man close. As Jack’s arms wrap around him in return, Ianto feels that familiar touch on his mind. It’s barely there, not nearly what it’d felt like when it’d called to Ianto, but Ianto feels comforted; not quite content, but a little more whole at least.

There’s still so much cleaning up to do and he’ll ask the burning questions later, but for now Ianto opens himself up to Jack, to keep them both sane a little longer.

/end


End file.
